MGWCC #145

[time_hdr postdate="2011/03/15" plug="mgwcc-145" puzz="" anchor=""]crossword 4:14 (paper)
puzzle 5 minutes[/time_hdr]short post this week, as i’m on the road for spring break. we’re looking for a five-letter food, and the theme answers each contain a kind of pasta:

{Third period hockey score} is an OPEN-NET GOAL, hiding PENNE.

{Serious abdominal issue} is PEROTINITIS, with ROTINI. i’ve been waiting to use my matt “gaffeney” joke (okay, no, i haven’t)… the correct spelling is peritonitis, as in inflammation of the peritoneum. but do yourself a favor and don’t look it up on wikipedia, at least if you have any interest in holding down your breakfast. eww.

some {Russian hunters} might be a BORZOI PACK, eating some ORZO.

{Containing a certain metamorphic rock} is QUARTZITIC. the metamorphic rock in question is, of course, ZITI.

since i’m both busy and lazy, why don’t you guys use the comment thread to suggest your own (correctly spelled) 11-letter theme answers that contain a pasta (doesn’t have to be ROTINI)? whoever submits the best answer wins a firm handshake at the ACPT next weekend. okay, maybe i can’t give away prizes like that. a feeble, barely-there handshake is probably the best i can actually muster.

not sure about the title this week. different pastas have different shapes. is that the only connection?

pretty spicy grid. with only 42 theme squares (unless i’m missing something?), matt had plenty of leeway for scrabbly letters, even on top of QUARTZITIC and BORZOI. SEXY crossing REX reminds me of former bears QB rex grossman, known as “sexy rexy,” and BEQ, who called rex parker “sexy rexy” last friday. DSL LINE is both fresh and pleonastic, like the finest pasta.

the clue for JAPAN, {Nation hit yesterday by an 8.9 magnitude earthquake}, is kind of a downer in light of the subsequent nuclear disasters there, isn’t it?

okay, that’s it for me. if you’re going to be in brooklyn next weekend, come say hello. i know some people, but probably fewer than half the people who regularly comment on these posts (and surprisingly, i’ve never met matt himself in person), so let’s rectify that.

The table of pastas in the dictionary on my Mac has “riso” (really?). Maybe “worrisomely”? “Disimprison”?

Wikipedia has “risi” (smaller orzo), which would let you use “verisimilar”, which is appropriate because it’s be very similar to another type in the puzzle. Or you could use “Parisianize”, just because it sounds wacky.

Matt seems to have been going for actual common words or phrases – though borzoi pack was a stretch. This is a stretch too, but apparently there is something like a bank called a Giro … do they have tellers? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giro

Wasn’t it former Charlotte Hornets star Rex Chapman who was known as Sexy Rexy? I lived in Chicago throughout Rex Grossman’s Bears tenure and never heard him called that, though maybe that was his nickname elsewhere (such as Gainesville, where he presumably didn’t opt out of the estimable, worshipful talent pool the way Tim Tebow later did).